Our Stories

Norah Baziweli, a resident of Mtandire, an informal settlement in Lilongwe, Malawi, had a tough routine taking care of her family and earning a living.
Every morning, she would wake at 4:00am to do chores and prepare breakfast for her three young children. After they left for school, Norah would joimore

Ivy Chiyani, the sister-in-charge at the E.F Watson medical clinic in Zimbabwe, would like her patients to receive good healthcare -- but the limited physical space stymies her best efforts.
“We have just opened an opportunistic infections clinic and therefore we need more room to keep the antiretromore

For 20 years, basic water, sewer and garbage services were a rare luxury for most people in Telenesti, Moldova. The town of 9,000 used to be one of the country’s poorest. Decaying infrastructure languished without repairs.
For residents like Mihai Druta, 76, that meant struggling to carry water overmore

A recent survey on gender violence indicates that 38 percent of Timorese women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15. Despite the enactment of Law Against Domestic Violence in 2010, it is estimated that 30 to 50 percent of Timorese women continue to suffer abuse from their partners more

Fatma Ibrahim, a poor mother of six, has been illiterate all her life. As a child, her hardworking parents made simple handicrafts and sold them to make ends meet.
Like many girls growing up in Siwa, the largest oasis in Egypt’s western desert, Ibrahim was deprived of an education due to her family’more

The city of Muynak, in northwestern Uzbekistan, used to be home to a flourishing fishing industry. But when the Aral Sea started to dry up, so did the jobs. Today, the population in Muynak is down to 29,000 and has the highest percentage of unemployment in the region.
To address the economic, healthmore

Located in northeastern Burundi, the Ruvubu National Park is the country’s largest protected ecosystem. Spread over more than 50 000 hectares, it is home to rare species of plants and animals such as buffaloes. However, this unique ecosystem is threatened by poaching, bush fires, woodcutting, and bymore

“This is the one everyone knows from cartoons – the little worm in the apple,” explains Eftim Petkovski, scooping the larva of a codling moth from an apple in his orchard in Resen. “But it’s no joke, I can tell you – if we farmers don’t spray for them early on, all our livelihoods are at risk. more

Like many of his neighbours in Uzbekistan’s capital of Tashkent, Abdugani Rakhimov has a clear memory of the 1966 earthquake that destroyed more than 78,000 homes and left 300,000 citizens homeless: “It was the sound of shaking windows that woke us up. We realised it was an earthquake and ran more

Cybelle Agossou, the youngest of a family of six children, decided to enroll in a practical training course to become self-employed and help her parents. Today, at age 20, she manages a small soap-making business and employs four people.
Cybelle took an 18-month training course at the Songhai Centermore